Deep South Day Four

Today is a New Orleans day.  I’m trying really hard to learn how to say it. Nawleans is about the best I can do. There’s lots of French going on here.  That’s a language that sounds really cool but I fail to see any correlation between the alphabet and the way the words actually sound.

Our step-on tour guide joined us first thing.  She had many interesting things to share.  Reoccurring themes were the sea level, hurricanes, floods, levees, and the many ways we mortals attempt to fight back the relentless forces of nature, usually with mediocre results.  With the soft breeze, mild temperatures, and blue skies we are enjoying, it’s hard to believe such violence is a familiar part of life to the natives.  The 70% humidity today is nothing, we are told, to the oppressive heat of two weeks ago.

Our first stop was one of the many cemeteries dotting the city.  Majestic and ostentatious tombs lined walkways stretching out in every direction.  The one that creeped me out the most was actually one of the most beautiful.  It cost a million dollars and had matching stained glass windows, marble steps, walls infused with some sort of aromatic material to keep things perfumed, and the saddest story behind it I’ve heard in a long time.  It seems the occupant of this crypt had such a deep dislike for her children that she took all the necessary precautions to assure none of them could ever be interred with her.  So she lies there alone in her cold and silent mausoleum.  Well, actually, her body resides there.  Where she is I could not say and would rather not contemplate.  How terribly tragic to hate your children to such a degree!  Or maybe they hated her.  How deep the wounds must be to carry such rancor even beyond the grave.

Hundreds of Crypts

I asked Sandy, our guide, if the movie Double Jeopardy was filmed anywhere around here.  She told me it was indeed, at another cemetery across the city. That particular cemetery was closed to the public though because so many “fake” tour guides were taking people through for $5.00 per, so the city closed it down.  I’m not sure why this was so terrible; I mean, I don’t think the residents of the graveyard cared.

This place has many more dead people than living I think. There are cemeteries everywhere.  Sandy said that for the past several hundred years the custom, carried on to this day, is to bury people for one year and one day, at which point, due to the heat and humidity, they are completely decomposed.  Their bones are then removed and placed in above ground tombs, along with the bones of lots of other corpses.  For some reason they cannot be removed even one day earlier than the mandatory “year and a day.”  One recent change has been to place the bodies in body bags rather than coffins, in order to preserve the DNA should it be needed in the future.  Wouldn’t that be a job to talk about at parties to liven things up?! 

“So what do you do for a living?”

“Oh, I remove bones from the graves of the decomposed and put them in a crypt with other dead people.”

Since families actually purchase the land on which their tomb is built, it cannot just be given to someone else when the last of the family dies out.  So these tombs gradually deteriorate to ruins when there is no one left to care for them.

New Orleans Super Dome

The only subject that played a bigger role in today’s tour than the deceased was the ever present threat of hurricanes.  Even now there is a one brewing off the coast of Africa and it’s headed this way. We passed the New Orleans Super Dome which housed almost 20,000 displaced people during hurricane Katrina.  The fact that so much of this area is below sea level and protected only by levees has much to do with the Super Dome being known more for being a storm shelter than for the sports that are played there.  I may be exaggerating.  A little.

At several intersections in the city there were white bicycles, sometimes just one, sometimes whole piles, twisted and broken.  These are an indication of bike accidents resulting in death, which are frequent, according to Sandy. From the number of mangled “ghost bikes” along the way, I don’t think she is overstating the dangers.

Ghost Bikes

The French Quarter of New Orleans is the only remaining French Colonial and Spanish settlement in the USA. It has survived since 1718, through hurricanes, wars, epidemics, industrialization and commercialization.  Over 11,000 died in one yellow fever epidemic alone leading to desperate measures to try to get rid of what was believed to be “bad air.”  Cannons were shot in attempts to clear the atmosphere of the deadly disease.  The dead were buried in tombs far away to keep the corpses from continuing to kill. Since yellow fever is a virus spread by mosquitoes, neither of these measures had any effect whatsoever. As we look back and shake our heads at their ignorance it would be good to realize that a hundred years from now our current medical practices will likely seem barbaric.

The architecture is beautiful with colorful houses, some of them mansions, others, very small but just as beautiful.  Many are “shotgun” houses, so called because of their narrow footprint with two or more rooms laid out in a straight line. It’s amazing so many have survived the hurricanes, especially Katrina, the worst in anyone’s memory.

Many buildings are covered with graffiti, much of it quite beautiful.  Streetcars that have been out of commission since COVID reared its ugly head are finally up and running, some of them only in the last week or two.  The city appears to be bustling with activity, commerce back to normal, pedestrians walking their very large dogs, and buses touring everywhere.  I know this because at our last bathroom stop there were such long lines for the facilities some of us didn’t even bother joining the queue. Our bus unloading is enough to send shockwaves through the few lavatories some businesses provide.  Add another bus or two at the same time and it’s like waiting for a roller coaster at Disney World. I try to remember that I vowed during the height of COVID’s isolation never complain to about crowds again.

Double Shotgun House

I appreciated our tour guide’s honesty as she pointed out some of the new art throughout the city, calling it “stupid” in her humble opinion.  It seems she failed her PC class and I’m good with that.  There are plenty of amazing things to admire in this city so the “stupid” things can be called what they are and then ignored.  Those graffiti artists though, their work could be studied at length without seeing all the details.

Tent City, one of many

The homeless are an ongoing challenge.  Some areas of concrete underpasses have been fenced off to prevent the camps that spring up like weeds if left open.  I can’t help but wonder what brings fellow humans to such a state.  The obvious things like drugs, mental illness, and abject poverty certainly play a large role.  Yet there are those who simply choose the lifestyle.  This is what baffles me.  The thought of having no purpose, no mission in life, no goal other than getting through the next twenty-four hours; I simply cannot comprehend it.  It actually fills me with feelings of depression, anxiety, and panic.  I wonder how one can be truly helpful to those who feel like there is no place for them among the “normal” demographic.

Iva, our driver, dropped us off at a mall close to the banks of the Mississippi River in New Orleans.  After eating several of the famous beignets (rhymes with Bengay but tastes a whole lot better) liberally dusted in powdered sugar; they are like funnel cakes on steroids.  After a strong black coffee and two

Beignets

beignets, Paul and I did some shopping and found what we were looking for.

We met our group, as ordered by Martha, back outside at the prearranged time and obediently formed a line, walking the short distance to where the River Boat was docked. A street musician kept us entertained until boarding time.  On board we were seated in air-conditioned comfort and had a delicious lunch of all things Cajun. Gumbo with shrimp, crawfish, rice, and other tasty things, white rice with spicy sausage and rich sauce, black beans and rice, and bread pudding for dessert. 

The huge red paddle wheel chugging away is purported to weigh about 17 tons. We averaged about 12 mph and after meandering down the Mississippi for a spell we stopped at a war memorial commemorating a battle fought in 1815 between the British and a ragtag army thrown together in haste and made up of US regulars, Choctaw Indians, pirates and volunteers of “every race, language, religion, and social class from across Louisiana and the Southeastern United States.” (According to battlefields.org)  They defeated the British army, proving that a righteous cause, high motivation, and the will to achieve something worth the fight can win against trained soldiers.   

Chalmette Battlefield Memorial

Anyone on board who wished to do so could walk around the park grounds and up to the Chalmette Battlefield Memorial, a one-hundred foot high spire setting in sharp contrast to the massive oak trees and beautiful antebellum style house now there. Its massive white pillars lining double two-story verandas front and back were reminiscent of the southern charm of the Gone With The Wind era. The war memorial juts into the air a few hundred yards away, a stark reminder that this peaceful scene was once the site of bloody conflict in a time when our forefathers were risking everything to win their independence from British rule.  Only three of our group opted to do that walk and I’m glad I was one of them.  After our hearty meal it felt good to expend some energy.

Our next adventure was a trip down a typical Louisiana Bayou to look for alligators.  Armed with bags of marshmallows, an alligator delicacy, it seems, we clambered aboard what looked to be similar to a pontoon and we set off into the swamps with our tour guide.  He was a big boy with a low monotone voice and a heavy Creole accent that sounded like the toothless guys on Swamp People. He espoused at length on all things alligator. Water was “wahtah” and he never touched the letter “r” in anything he said.  The authenticity was delightful.  He welcomed questions and told us in detail how to hunt and kill these cold-blooded animals successfully. Someone asked if he had ever “wrestled an alligator?”  He responded, with no discernible change of expression, “Not on purpose.” 

We had barely started out when the first alligator arrived and circled our boat.  I was thankful I was on board and not wading about.  We threw marshmallows and they were quickly swallowed up.  Throughout our cruise we saw many more alligators swimming around us.  It was clear they knew what a boat load of tourists meant because they approached us willingly to snap up their sugary snacks.  Paul said they’ve already been trained to the welfare system of the eat-without-working ethic. They certainly didn’t fear us.  Our guide told us they can lie at the bottom of the murky water, completely submerged “for hours.” And they can live up to 90 years or more but that only about 5 or 6 out of a typical nest of 30 eggs will survive to adulthood.  The tagging/hunting system is rigidly enforced and tracked because not so long ago they had been hunted almost to extinction.

It was an idyllic evening with perfect temperatures and a sun sinking low on the horizon as we floated up the bayou through the thick vegetation covering the banks on both sides of the swamp. 

We drove out of the city as the dusk turned to night, the city lights beautiful in the darkness.  We stopped for a fast food supper when the opportunity presented itself. We picked a Five Guys with several others and ate at a picnic table outside.  A crescent moon with a single star suspended below hung in a clear and dark blue sky. Perfection.

Since it was after nine when we reached our hotel and we had been having one adventure after another all day, no one was up for cards.  Our beds were a welcome sight and we fell into them feeling quite satisfied.